ITProPortal.com has come back from a briefing with Nokia over the recently announced 808 PureView camera phone, which has a 41 megapixel image sensor and offers the highest level of picture capture of any phone around today - but only at 38MP.

We have been informed by a Nokia spokesperson that full 41megapixel image capture was possible, in the early stages of development, in the RAW format. Nokia toyed with the idea of offering this on the 808 PureView, but decided to go another way.

38MP will be the largest offering in the camera phone that succeeds the Nokia N8, from late 2010. Nokia stated that there was darkening around the edges in the RAW format - hence the decision to drop the feature and stick with 38.

The image sensor deployed in the Nokia 808 PureView is five times larger than the ones used in their competitors 8 megapixel offering, whilst being 2.5 times bigger than the one used in the Nokia N8.

Nokia noted that the 808 PureView has been five years in development, from concept to fruition which is why Symbian has been used as the platform of choice for the handset. Microsoft's Windows Phone OS is a relatively new addition to the company, in comparison.

Nokia weren't able to confirm whether there will be other PureView camera mobile phones this year, only that it's likely that the device(s) will contain the PureView ethos.

This surrounds a ‘higher performance sensor, high performance optics and Nokia algorithms'.